NEW DELHI: Tata Teleservices and Aircel — the only two telcos that have declared a negative net worth for next month’s spectrum auctions — are allowed to only top up their existing holdings and can’t bid for new airwaves, the telecom department has said.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio has submitted Rs 4,500 crore as its earnest money deposit (EMD) for the spectrum auction, the highest among telecom operators, signaling an aggressive play at next month’s sale and spicing up a contest in which Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Communications face a battle for survival in some circles.

The number of operators offering 4G mobile services rose by 36 per cent to 360 globally in 2014 and nearly half of these used spectrum in 1800 MHz band to provide the super-fast services, says a report, reported PTI.

NEW DELHI: Norms that would allow telecom operators to share and trade spectrum may be delayed beyond the auctions slated for February, official sources said. The delay will be a dampener to the beleaguered telecom industry, which is critical of the sale of only one block (5MHz) of 3G spectrum against four blocks suggested by telecom regulator Trai.

Government has prohibited imports of all kind of mobile handsets with fake or duplicate unique identity numbers, a move that will help security agencies in tracking callers using different sim cards, Reports PTI.

The Telecom Commission (TC), the highest policy-making body of the department of telecommunications (DoT), on Monday approved a base price of Rs 3,700 crore for each MHz of 2,100-MHz spectrum to be auctioned on February 25.